Rassaan Roane, who cleans aircraft cabins for $7.25 an hour and no benefits, kneels during a prayer with fellow ground support workers inside Terminal B at Newark Liberty International Airport. Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union organized the prayer to raise awareness of Roane's and other workers' situation.
Dave Sander for 32BJ SEIU

Newark airport workers held a Thanksgiving prayer this morning, trying to call attention to low wages and a lack of benefits for people who clean the jets that passengers fly home for the holidays.

The prayer, led by the Rev. Ronald Tuff of First Bethel Baptist Church in Newark, was followed by a walk around Terminal C by more than two dozen workers who participated. The event was organized by Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, which in 2011 launched a drive to unionize thousands of airport workers, many of them employed by airline contractors that pay little money and no benefits.

“It was very powerful when the minister led the prayer," said Kevin Brown, the president of 32BJ. “And then a lot of the workers who were working in the terminal were cheering them on.”

The Newark City Council was applauded by the union and airport workers last month, when it approved an ordinance to require mandatory sick pay for all but the smallest companies in the city.

One worker who kneeled to pray with the group, Rassan Roane, said he had seen his wages fall from $10.25 an hour in 2001, to $7.25 now.

“I am a parent of three and I get by paying my bills with money left for me after my father and grandfather died to supplement my meager income,” Roane said in a statement provided by the union. “When this money is gone I don't know what I am going to do.”

One way airlines have held down costs and the price of seats in recent years has been to lay off cabin cleaners and other ground support staff and outsource the work to firms that can do it cheaper by paying less. Defenders of the practice say airlines have merely brought the cost of cleaning and other support services down to levels comparable to other industries.